View the videoTo dodge obstacles, pigeons have to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. By altering their wing posture, the birds can successfully navigate tight spots, researchers report March 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.Harvard University researchers filmed and...

Lightning bolts that flash and clash high above erupting volcanoes can forge flying ash into glass, new research finds. The mechanism could explain the origins of odd microscopic glass beads found embedded in ash deposits, the researchers report online February 27 in Geology.A volcanic eruption can kick...

The Hubble Space Telescope has some competition. A telescope in Chile has captured a three-dimensional view of a part of the sky previously imaged by Hubble. The image stretches across cosmic time, revealing modern day galaxies as well as ones seen as they existed when the universe was less than a billion years old. A single observation from a new high-tech camera on the telescope captured not...

Newly discovered brain cells in monkeys can predict another monkey’s actions in a cooperation game. If such brain cells also exist in humans, they may be important in social interactions that require calculating another person’s intentions.The brain cells were found in rhesus macaques playing a video game called the prisoner’s dilemma. The cells keep track of how other monkeys behaved in previous...

Nearly all pediatricians and family physicians have encountered parents who want to delay their infants’ vaccinations, a study published March 2 in Pediatrics suggests. A national survey of 534 doctors showed that in a typical month, 93 percent of doctors have interacted with parents who...

Patterns in when and how much plants grow have changed markedly over the past 30 years, scientists report March 2 in Nature Climate Change.Researchers looked at satellite data of vegetation on the Earth’s surface from 1981 to 2012. They examined 21 markers of plant growth, including the dates when plants start sprouting and losing...

Some plants crave a long bird bill. One tropical plant can even recognize which kind of hummingbird is slurping its nectar by the shape of its bill, scientists report online March 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.In Heliconia tortuosa, long-billed hummingbirds can reach in and guzzle more...

A subtle attraction between metallic strips could reveal the theorized but never detected particles that impart gravity.An experiment proposed in a Feb. 27 Physical Review Letters paper would explore whether fleeting waves of gravity in a vacuum perceptibly nudge two lead plates together. Detecting this attractive force,...

HOUSTON — Children born to mothers who were exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke during pregnancy face an elevated risk of eczema and other skin problems in childhood.Elementary school children exposed to smoke in the womb were 50 percent more likely to have any history of atopic dermatitis than unexposed kids, scientists in South Korea found using blood tests and questionnaires about prenatal...

Using wee balls of iron, scientists can catch radioactive fuel — hook, line and sinker.In liquid, iron nanoparticles quickly lure and encase uranium, which researchers can then reel in with a simple magnet. The method, reported online February 17 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could be used to sop up radioactive spills...